Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) (3 page)

“Oh, for all the gods’ sakes! Do you want me to shoot you, or don’t you even care?” She lowered the machine gun, a banner of fear rippling through her dark eyes. Then she hunched her shoulders and sighed. “Go out into the avenue, walk two blocks down, then turn right. It’s the red door. Timmy. Ask him. He knows. He’s got a transport business.”

“Thanks.” He pushed off the bar, staggering just a little, and headed to the door. Blood oozed down his hip, and he stopped, figuring he’d never reach Aerica if he didn’t do something about it. Under Dima’s glare, he ripped the hem off his t-shirt and wound it around his waist as tightly as he could in a makeshift bandage.

With his Rasmus held loosely at his side, expecting the man to jump out at him, he stepped out into the street. Watching the shadows for any movement, he stalked down the avenue. Quiet. Nobody lurked there. He began to relax as he turned the corner into the side street.
Almost there
.

Rough hands grabbed his right shoulder and pulled, and white-hot pain erupted in his gut. He cried out, a hoarse animal sound, and the sounds faded and returned with a roar.

“Tau was right, look at his eye. Cronion-touched.” A woman approached from his side and shoved a knife under his chin, lifting it with the cold tip. “I’ll get the gun, you check his pockets.”

“You’re not the boss,” said a male voice. Then the hands jerked Elei’s arms back until his elbows brushed together, and this time the pain was like a blade twisting in his insides, cutting his breath short. “I’ll have the gun and you check his pockets.”

A few feet away, a passerby stopped and then slunk back. Nobody would help him; nobody would risk their neck to save him. Elei knew that and he’d have done exactly the same.

But Pelia had given him an address, had wanted him to get there, and he would, if it was the last thing he ever did.
Think!
Timmy operated a business, so he must have guards.

He took a deep breath.

“Timmy!” he shouted. “Help! I’m a customer! Help me!”

“Shut up!” The man released his arms, grabbed Elei’s throat and pressed deep with his fingers. “Shut your mouth.”

Oh hells
. Elei clawed at the man’s hands, but couldn’t pry them off. The passage of air to his lungs slowed to a trickle. The world spun and darkened while he elbowed and kicked back at his attacker again and again, but to no effect. Reality splintered. He struggled harder, panicking.

A kick finally connected and the man loosened his hold, cursing. Not losing a beat, he seized Elei’s arms again. Immobilized, hanging in that unrelenting grasp, Elei coughed and hacked, fighting to draw air. His lungs burned.

The woman jabbed the tip of the knife into Elei’s ribs. “Don’t you dare shout again.”

She needn’t worry; he had no more breath to spare.

“You two, put away your weapons.” A black-clad giant of a man stepped out of a doorway and pointed his gun at the woman. “He’s here for Timmy. Back off.”

The woman hissed and stepped away. When another guard came out, weapon drawn, his assailants glanced at each other, released Elei and scuttled off.

Wheezing, Elei took a faltering step before his knees gave way and the sidewalk rushed up to meet him.

Hands grabbed him just in time. Still blinking at the cracked cement, he was lifted by the armpits and dragged into the building. Disconnected images teased his vision — doors opening into squalid interiors, red-rimmed eyes curiously staring as they passed, and then he was pushed through a double door. Elei tripped on the step, but the guards’ momentum carried him inside into a dark lobby.

“Customer, Mr. Timmy,” announced one of them and Elei was deposited on a metal bench. The world blurred and pitched, and he gripped the edge of the bench.

“Gods in the deep!” Timmy stood behind a scratched counter — a well-fed young man with rounded cheeks and belly. A lit
ama
cigarette hung from his lips. He wore a white, button-down shirt that looked expensive, despite the yellow stains on the collar. Business was good. “Damned brigands, shooting my customers on my own doorstep. Very bad for the image.”

Elei looked down at his blood-drenched pants and didn’t bother to correct him. Let him think he’d just been shot. A moment of respite, of safety, that was all Elei wanted. His pulse beat in his head, in his throat, in his fingertips. If he felt safe, cronion would relax too and release its iron claws from inside his skull.

“Be sure to keep pressure on that wound.” Timmy sniffed. “Is it serious?”

Elei shook his head.

Timmy brightened immediately. “Excellent. So, to business. Where to?”

“I need to go,” Elei had to stop and cough, “to Artemisia.” Coming through his bruised airways, his voice was a raucous whisper. He raised a hand to his throat and watched in fascination as his fingers shook like an old man’s. He clenched them hard.

“Listen.” Timmy puffed sweet smoke into Elei’s face. “A friend of mine has an aircar. For the right fee, she can take you anywhere you want. Do you have money?”

Elei coughed again. “Isn’t there a streetcar going that way?”

“No streetcars; the Gultur stopped the service. Rent the aircar or go walking.”

“Shit.” No wonder business was good.

 “Artemisia center or suburbs?”

“Aerica.”

Timmy took out his cigarette and flicked the ashes to the floor. “Aerica? That’s technically outside Artemisia. It’s toward the old mines.”

“Your point?”

“Hey, no problem, my friend can take you there.” Timmy smiled, his eyes narrowing. “It’s three hundred dils, though, up front. You need to book the entire aircar just for you, see.”

Elei stared, unblinking. Three hundred. A month’s salary. But he had to get there, and his body wasn’t likely to co-operate much longer.
Screw it
.

The problem was he wasn’t even sure he had that kind of money with him. He dug into his pocket, took out his last bills and scrounged for all the loose dils. Timmy reached over the counter to take them and then heaped them on the top like some sort of mythic treasure. His eyes glinted while his lips moved, calculating.

“This is two hundred seventy,” he said eventually, looking up.

Elei fished into his back pockets. “It’s all I have left,” he said stonily and waited, because there was nothing else he could pissing do.

“Tell you what.” Timmy leaned toward him, his voice low, and Elei could smell something rotten coming. “I could buy the Rasmus off you. It’s in good shape for such an antique gun. I’ll give you five hundred and you can ride for free. It’s a bargain. What do you say?”

Pelia had given him that gun. It was her gift. Elei’s right eye twitched and Timmy’s shape wavered. The colors changed, flaring into bright red and yellow, centered on the man’s heart. Trust cronion to suggest a direct and final solution. “No way.”

Timmy must have seen something in Elei’s expression because he backed off and sucked on his cigarette, his face going sour. “Fine, don’t get all worked up. I have another idea. Plenty of ideas, see. So, why don’t you give me the two hundred and seventy, and my friend can drive you to Ponds, not so far from Aerica. You can walk to Aerica, not four miles away, and she can take the heavenway from there. How about that?”

Elei clenched his teeth. “Just give me a discount. It’s not a big difference.” He wouldn’t beg, dammit.

“Sorry, my friend, but I can’t. The cost of
dakron
has skyrocketed and the taxes for this business…” Timmy tsked.

Elei bowed his head.
Screw you
. Four miles. He wondered if he’d make it. He took some deep breaths, willing his heart to slow. Too much adrenaline could kill you eventually, even if you didn’t bleed to death. “Fine.”

“Hey, man. Sure you’re all right?” Timmy frowned as he strewed ash from his
ama
cigarette on the counter. “All that blood on your pants… You’re not going to pass out on my friend, are you?”

“I said I’m fine,” Elei bit off the words. Cronion’s jabs inside his skull finally settled into the usual, constant throb. The colors faded to a lower intensity. “Where’s your friend?”

Timmy picked an old-fashioned telespeak, a
nepheline
square box, lifted the receiver and hit the connect button. “Fia, call.” He sucked on the cigarette, waiting for the call to go through, and then straightened. “Fia? Move your arse over here right now, I’ve found you a customer. Yes. Now.”

He put the receiver back into its cradle and grinned. One of his canines was missing. The smoke swirled. “Net’s down again. Gultur control policy. When that happens, we’re back to the ancient methods, nothing else is reliable.”

Elei didn’t even blink.

Timmy stared at Elei with open curiosity. “Not from around here, are you? You’ll see a lot of this on Dakru, everyone’s been digging out their old gadgets. It’s been like that ever since the Undercurrent started their attacks, oh, three years back.”

Undercurrent. The terrorist organization fighting against the Gulturs’ dictatorial rule over the Seven Islands. The Gultur had chosen rich Dakru as their headquarters. Ost, being the island with the least resources, no more than a big rock in the sea, hadn’t drawn their attention. Hells, on Ost telespeaks were the standard method of communication. No wonder it had so little Gultur presence and the Undercurrent hadn’t surfaced there.

Ost
. He’d left Ost… when? Many hours ago. Too many hours ago. Automatically he checked for his watch.
Oh, yes. Lost
. It had broken off his wrist when he’d smashed into the ground. He’d taken a leap from the first floor to a terrace he’d seen below, but missed and fell to the street instead, after…

Timmy was waving a hand in front of his face. “Hey, you sure you’re okay? I’m not putting you inside the aircar with Fia in this state.”

Elei shook his head, rubbed at his possessed eye and sat up straighter, hissing. Still, the pain helped gather his scattered thoughts.
Stay awake. Stay focused
.

It was all he could do while waiting.

Chapter
Four

H
era
strode through Sestos, the capital of Ost in the early evening. The buildings and shanty towns spread like a bad skin rash, uneven and filthy. Her mental map showed her the route back to Pelia’s apartment, and although she slowed to a nonchalant pace, she struggled not to drive her fist through every wall she passed.

Interrogating Falx was out of the question. Such an act would raise too much suspicion. Interrogating the neighbors, which she’d tried, proved an exercise in futility. The boy was gone without a trace, like a fine trail of smoke dissipating in the clear sky.

Caught in the flickering light of a street lamp, a bedraggled woman selling
ama
cigarettes at the street corner stared with wide eyes.

Time to go
. Hera turned and headed back toward the landing pad where she’d left the helicopter. She’d attracted too much attention already. Movements jerky with frustration, she fumbled in her pocket for the ignition key. She needed to let the other resistance members know. Maybe someone had a lead.

One could hope, right?

Things were going to the five hells. The shipment represented years of work and hope, experiments, failures and small victories. Then Pelia had spoken of a breakthrough, raising a frenzy of speculation and expectancy, and now she was dead and the shipment gone.

I must find it. But how?

“Hey, you!” a breathless female voice called behind her and Hera whirled around, whipping out her longgun and aiming in one fluid movement.

The woman squealed, eyes going big and round, and raised her hands. A tray hung around her neck on a piece of filthy string.
Ama
cigarettes
. The street vendor she’d seen before.

“What do you want?” Hera grated.

“Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot me.” Tears rolled down the woman’s grimy face, leaving pale trails.

“I shall not. Speak.” Hera lowered her gun and glanced at her helicopter out of the corner of her eye. Maybe she could hand the woman a nutrition bar; that would appease her, and Hera would leave sooner from this accursed island. Unlike Dakru, Ost reeked of disease and desperation. The sheer number of crippled beggars on the street was appalling.

“You’re looking for the boy.” The vendor wiped at her eyes, smearing more dirt on her cheeks. “You are, don’t deny it.”

“The boy?” Hera asked, feigning ignorance even as her palms sweated and the longgun began to slip from her grip.

“The boy with the mismatched eyes. Eles. He used to drive the aircar for Pelia, who lived across the street. I know him.” She nodded, eyes red-rimmed. “He used to buy cigs from me.”

Eles
. A lead, an honest to the gods lead. Hera took a deep breath. “And what happened to him?” Deep inside, the cold lump of fear sprouted tendrils of ice. “Is he dead?”

The woman shrugged her thin shoulders. “He ran.”

Hera licked dry lips and instructed her heart to calm down. It almost worked. “Can you repeat that?”

“He ran away.” The vendor glanced over her shoulder, as if afraid of someone overhearing. Hera scanned the street but saw no movement.

“Where to?”

The woman pointed west. Hera squinted at the squalid, dilapidated buildings. “Is that the way to the bridge?”

But the woman shook her head and backed away. “I need to go now, they’ll kill me too, if they find me—”

“Wait.” Hera made a grab for the vendor’s thin arm, but the woman twisted away. “I said wait!”

The vendor fled down the street, moving faster than Hera thought possible for such an emaciated body, and disappeared into a dark alley. There went her only willing witness. Hera swore under her breath and turned her gaze again in the direction the woman had indicated. Where had the boy gone? Pelia must have told him to seek out the resistance, to seek help.

Not over the bridge, though, that would have been too risky. The glow of yellow spotlights on high metal cranes caught her eye.
The port
. Her lips twitched. Yes, the port. She knew now where the boy had gone. Across the isthmus, to the closest shore.

Dakru.